The papers were donated to the Amherst College Center for Russian Culture by Thomas P. Whitney, (AC 1937), in 1991. Mr. Whitney purchased this collection in the 1970s from Princess Zinaida Shakhovskoy.
In 1993 Z. Shakhovskoy donated to the Center an unpublished manuscript and several letters which were incorporated into the papers.
A portion of the papers, Personal and Professional Correspondence, was preliminarily sorted by Colleen McQuillan in October and November 1993. The rest of the material was organized, sorted and listed by Tanya Chebotarev between January and September of 1995.
Approximately one linear foot of Z. Shakhovskoy's correspondence with her brother Ioann (Shakhovskoy), Archbishop of San Francisco and Western United States, is restricted until five years after her death in accordance with her request.